Supreme Court Rules Against SEC on Relaxed Time Limits

By

Brent Kendall

Updated Feb. 27, 2013 4:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court handed a unanimous legal defeat to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, ruling the agency can't relax time limits for seeking civil penalties in fraud cases.

The court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed a lower court ruling that gave the SEC additional time to seek penalties against a former money manager and an executive at Gabelli Funds LLC on allegations they secretly allowed a favored investor to engage in market timing, a practice in which...